February 2021 • tigertimesonline.com The write ideas

Sticky notes bring life to writer’s thoughts

Prelude

Pieces of my mind are bound to a bulletin board in my room. Slivers of my thoughts fold themselves up and cram into a small, round container on my night stand. It’s just a short, old table that barely stands on its own three legs, yet it holds the bits of my brain I empty onto it. Sometimes it’s just a song lyric that’s words unlocked a beautiful world in my head. Maybe it’s a shard of a person, a character that I haven’t yet brought to life on a bigger page, one whose fragments I can stick together someday just as the Post-it notes stick to the bulletin board.

Post-it notes stack four high next to my bed, three more on my desk. I carry empty Post-it notes in my purse, crumpled at the bottom of the pocket where my phone usually goes, and a pen pokes up from the adjacent spot. Words come to my mind once in a blue moon, but not a literal blue moon, because my thoughts run faster than the lunar cycle, and the words get louder and demand to be written down and I’m in the middle of something but I stop. I brush past my phone and take out the Post-it notes and the pen. I smooth out the wrinkles in the paper. I uncap the pen.

Words in the shape of chicken scratch adorn the square page, and I already strain to read them. I know it will be nearly impossible later. Nonetheless, I shove my musings back into my purse, put the pen away. Ink smudges the side of my right pinkie. The pen costs only a few cents, but it is still ink, and it will still stain the paper for as long as I need it to. When I can’t remember the ideas that had once thundered above all others, I can resuscitate them.

Leitmotif

I am unmotivated, my imagination continues to fail me and I am unable to recall a singular thing that has made me feel the opposite. It is a disease, this wall in my mind keeping me from the words I crave. I used to beat senselessly at the brick, hoping it would fall on its own, but now I have fashioned a cure, collected dynamite to set at the base of the obstruction. The key to my unrestricted future lies in the thoughts of my past. I dump the Post-it notes from their container and I read. My heart beats words through my veins as I take them in. The creases in the paper begin to fray, threatening to dissolve along the folds even as the thoughts printed on them remain.

A breath of fresh air rushes into my lungs at the sight of the words, the kind of wind that takes me and lifts me higher. I am not Icarus— I did not fly near the sun. I had only been falling. Once upon a time, inspiration had struck, and the real, tangible proof sprawls at my crossed legs. A moment had existed when the pulse in my ears drowned everything else out, drumming the beat to an epiphany, one I can listen to again once I have forgotten the melody.

Coda

The Post-it notes are a reminder. They prompt me to remember that I am here and that I, even if it is not at that moment, am full. I am full of thoughts and feelings and life. Forgetfulness comes naturally, and if I’m not careful, every reverie I’ve ever loved will slip from my head.

I don’t want to be alone with an idle mind. I let my thoughts bleed through the ink and onto the Post-it note, display the wound proudly on my wall. I want to be able to pick open the scab and dig for the bone, the deeper story I was meant to write, the one that goes on the bigger page. I don’t want to have just scars, faint remnants of my mind. I need my words, my fantasies, brought to life on the most immense pages possible, and I will grow it all from my Post-it notes. emma.allen@tigertimesonline.com